Pointless chit chat or vital social lubricant? Michael Rosen and Dr Laura Wright talk small talk with psychotherapist and writer Philippa Perry, author of 'How to Stay Sane'. Why do we bother with small talk? What are the rules of banter? And what are we really talking about when we talk about the weather?
2 October 2016
1 October 2016
How a Conservative Paper Ended Up Endorsing Hillary Clinton
Two months ago, after the Houston Chronicle announced its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for President of the United States, the director of the editorial page of the Arizona Republic, Phil Boas, contacted a prominent state historian. He wanted help determining whether his paper had ever endorsed a Democratic Presidential candidate in its hundred-and-twenty-six-year history. The Phoenix-based, conservative-leaning newspaper, which has the largest circulation in the state, was once called the Arizona Republican, and it had backed every Republican candidate for President going back as far as anyone at the paper could remember. But what about, say, the contest between Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison, in 1892, two years after the paper’s founding? [...]
The Republic’s editorial board eventually spent “dozens of hours” discussing the “twists and turns of the election” in secretive meetings that Boas compared to a “papal conclave.” Some discussions involved the entire board, while others were between just Boas and the publisher, Mi-Ai Parrish. Those two, along with the paper’s editor-in-chief, Nicole Carroll, form the “executive wing” of the board. (Parrish green-lighted every editorial that criticized Trump.) The ultimate decision to support Clinton was not unanimous, but Boas said that reaching a majority was not difficult and effectively happened months ago. “There’s often tension between the main board and the executive wing,” he explained. “And there wasn’t that tension. It was an easy thing to do.” He continued, “We see him as a dangerous guy who would roll back press freedoms, who has sworn to do that. If he would crush freedoms in one area, we have no doubt he’d do so in others.” [...]
Boas believes that many longtime Republicans who support Trump are in denial. “I hear it in their voices, the little qualifiers: ‘He’s not nearly as bad as she is.’ That kind of thing,” he said. “I know they know that he violates even their values. But they’re willing to make compromises because they so despise her.” The Republic, he added, was “not willing to make that compromise.” Clinton “treats the office with respect,” he said. “And Trump has no respect for the office that he seeks. And if the leaders of our country don’t respect our important institutions, no one is going to respect them. That’s why he scares us.”
Vox: Maine could become the first state in the nation to have ranked-choice voting
First, we had the Republican primary. Donald Trump won, but he did not win a majority in any single state until relatively late, April 19. Trump was also the most unpopular Republican candidate among almost a quarter of Republican voters. Had Republican primary voters used a system of instant-runoff, ranked-choice voting, Trump probably would not have been the nominee. That's because many Republicans would have ranked him dead last, or probably not at all.
Now, in the general election, many are worried that support for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein is making this election closer than it should be. Hillary Clinton may not be the most inspiring candidate to many voters, but most Stein or Johnson supporters would likely support her over Trump if they could rank the candidates. If so, an instant-runoff, ranked-choice voting approach would significantly decrease the likelihood of Trump becoming president.
All this is why I'm eagerly anticipating the results of a Maine state initiative that could make the Pine Tree state the first in the nation to use ranked choice voting to elect a legislature, a governor, and members of Congress. [...]
So far, ranked-choice voting systems have only been used in municipal elections in the US (though a few states use them for overseas voters). There are now 11 US cities using ranked-choice voting. However, since many city elections are effectively nonpartisan (typically, one party has an overwhelming majority) and also tend to be relatively low-turnout affairs, it's hard to be sure exactly what would happen on the state level. Still, there are some things we can learn from the municipal experiences so far. [...]
Think about it: The single-vote, winner-take-all, zero-sum nature of our current elections encourages candidates to tear each other apart, since voters only can choose one candidate. But if candidates start competing to be voters' second and third choices, they have incentives to play a little nicer with each other so as to not alienate potential supporters. You can imagine candidates saying, "Vote for me, but also pick this person second." Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges explains this well in this video clip talking about her 2013 election.
The Atlantic: Saudi Arabia Is a Partner, Not a Friend
Before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and really until al-Qaeda began to attack the kingdom directly in May 2003, Saudi Arabia was often uncooperative on counterterrorism, and more part of the problem than part of the solution. Since 2003, the Saudi regime has emerged as a vital counterterrorism partner, and several important successes against al-Qaeda in particular are due in large part to its cooperation. Yet it’s not a simple story of progress: The kingdom engages in many troubling behaviors today that make the terrorism problem worse. In the end, policymakers would do well to remember that Saudi Arabia is a key partner but not a friend: The United States and Saudi Arabia share many common interests, but they do not share common values or a common worldview.
Understanding Saudi Arabia’s relationship with terrorists, however, is far more difficult than assessing Iran’s open, extensive sponsorship of terrorism. Much of Saudi support is done by non-state actors. Yet that does not absolve the Saudi government of responsibility. These non-state actors enjoy a range of relationships with the Saudi regime. Some receive or did receive official patronage. Others, particularly those tied to leading clerics in the kingdom, are embraced indirectly by the regime’s self-proclaimed role as defender of the faithful. And still others are truly private, acting independently of the government and in times in opposition to it. [...]
Changing Saudi policy still further is difficult. Although the United States has sold the kingdom almost $100 billion in arms under the Obama administration, the Saudi media remains critical of the president as unreliable and hostile to the kingdom. Riyadh, moreover, is frustrated with U.S. policy regarding Iran in particular, but also in the region in general. Saudi Arabia backed the coup in Egypt, in opposition to U.S. policy, and Saudi leaders were previously outraged that the United States abandoned the Mubarak regime. The Obama administration has largely abandoned criticizing the Saudi regime on human-rights grounds, but it is important to remember that most Saudis do not share U.S. values regarding the rights of women and homosexuals, religious liberty, and other basic freedoms that are fundamental to American society.
Quartz: An American court has set a huge precedent for Black Lives Matter activists
A black man being wrongfully criminalized is not remarkable; it seems a daily occurrence in America. What is remarkable about this ruling is the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s explanation: that the police had no justifiable cause to stop Warren. Being a black man is, the court maintained, too vague a motive for arrest: “It was simply not possible for the police reasonably and rationally to target the defendant or any other black male wearing dark clothing as a suspect in the crime,” they said.
The court also noted that the police had no justifiable cause to arrest Warren for running away from them in the first place. In other words, it was within Warren’s legal rights to run from the police and, furthermore, the act of running away from the police does not imply guilt and is not grounds for arrest. The court cited precedent, including a 1996 ruling in which it determined, “Neither evasive behavior, proximity to a crime scene, nor matching a general description is alone sufficient to support… reasonable suspicion.”
Perhaps most remarkable of all, the court—quoting racial-profiling statistics—noted that black men were “disproportionately targeted” to the extent that flight from police should not necessarily be an admission of guilt. Rather, black men, who “in Boston are disproportionately and repeatedly targeted for FIO encounters,” the court declared, have “reason for flight totally unrelated to consciousness of guilt.”
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